Month: November 2015

This weird thought, or group of thoughts, came to me earlier today as I sneezed six times when I was looking in the fridge for green pesto.

Looking for this made me sneeze

I had just watched a BBC News item from last year about a man I would like to meet. The man in question was in the news because he decided to log the quality, place and consequence of all of his sneezes. This idea appealed to me because I am a secret fan of collecting and statistics. I’m currently collecting and logging burst balloons found in my daily wanderings and wonderings and that is quite weird. I love the idea of collating sneezes and noting down the activities engaged in when the sneezes occur. Sadly, the man in the news item beat me to it. There’s no point me copying his idea. For now, I will stick to burst balloons.

My interesting collection

However, this started me thinking about sneezes. I asked myself: what do I think about sneezing?

Sneezing is very inconvenient. I have inherited from my mum the ability to have multiple sneezes in one session. This is fine if I am at home, but when driving a car or operating heavy machinery, it is a little irksome.

I have big sneezes. I find my sneezes embarrassing. People turn their heads when I sneeze in public. Strangers often say ‘bless you!’. My sneezes echo. I apologise for my public sneezing. I have a friend, and if she reads this she will know who she is, who has the most lovely ladylike sneezes I have ever heard. They are only audible to bats. I envy her sneezes. I lived in Japan for two years. I spent two years regretting my sneezes. Japanese people do not sneeze loudly.

Face explosions

My next problem with sneezes is that they very rarely leave me feeling full satisfied. They are like unfulfilled promises. They make me feel the same way as ‘we’ll see’ used to make me feel. The dream of satisfaction almost comes but, not quite. So a second attempt is needed. Yet this has the same consequence. So we try a third time. And again, satisfaction is just off the horizon. After six attempts my nose gives up and I am left with a feeling of deep disappointment.

Apparently, a sneeze is akin to rebooting your laptop. Every now and then my laptop takes a funny turn or a programme stops working on it. Solution? Reboot. So the same goes for the nose.

Mints make me sneeze. I always sneeze when I eat an Extra Strong Mint. I don’t know if that is normal or not.

Just looking at these make me sneeze

Heineken makes me sneeze. I’m sure that isn’t normal. Other brands of beer do not have the same effect.

A great drink if you have a cold

I am sure that sneezing after drinking a particular brand of beer is rather odd. But odd is good.

Until recently, I loved Christmas. It was my favourite time of year. After all, I was born on Christmas Day. Christmas to me meant magic, family, Dandelion and Burdock, presents and more presents, chocolates, snow, TV and days off school. I have lots of memories of good (and not so good) Christmases: the Christmas when Grandma fell out of the car a few days before, the Christmases when my mum had to go to work, the Christmas when I received purple velvet peddle pushers, the Christmas when I was given brown suede pixie boots, the Christmases when I was too excited to eat, the Christmas when I was given a beautiful doll’s house and the Christmas I spent in Japan on the ski slopes with a conifer for a tree.

I loved my pixie boots

As an adult, I still love Christmas. I have three children and they love Christmas. We have our Christmas traditions. We always get a real tree. We always get it two weeks before Christmas. The top of our tree is adorned with a sheep (who else remembers the part the sheep played in the Nativity story?). They hang up their stockings above the wood burning stove. They have their own stockings which they’ve had since babies. They love Christmas. I love that they love Christmas.

Now that is what I call a tree to beat all trees

However, over the last few years I have slowly gone off Christmas. Why? I hear you ask. What is there not to like about Christmas? The answer is: I agree, there is nothing not to like about Christmas. But I also love November. I am also partial to October. But due to the current forcing of Christmas down our throats from mid-September onwards we are not given the chance to appreciate October or, more specifically, November any more. I feel very sorry for November. Nobody loves November. November barely exists anymore. It should be renamed pre-December. It is completely dwarfed by its more colourful and sparkly neighbour. December lasts for 10 weeks. Christmas is everywhere throughout November. Christmas starts in September, creeps under the door in October and explodes through it in November. Now in mid-November, a coffee cannot be consumed without the sound of Dean Martin crooning about his lovely warm fire. You fancy as latte in October? Have it with cinnamon. Need to shop for a birthday card eight weeks before Christmas? Good luck with that, the birthday cards will have been shoved to the shadowy cob-webbed corners of the card shop to make room for CHRISTMAS.

There may be people reading this who think I am just being a moany old Christmas Grinch. I am definitely being moany. But I’m not a Christmas Grinch.I love the magic of Christmas. I love the music, the time to rest, the family, the fun of presents. But I’m now getting quite scared that the excitement is being drained out of me. Christmas is just a slightly more important Sunday dinner if you strip it to the bare bones. It’s not really that special unless you are a Christian. Christmas (or the time of mid-winter) is such a wondrous and historic celebration borne out of many different beliefs . It shouldn’t be such a all-consuming shiny, money-heavy cloud that blinds us to the joy of this time of year: early and mid-winter.

Please, world, slow down. Stop looking forward all the time. Pause. Enjoy the moment. Don’t wish the years away. I don’t want to end up as a bitter, sad old lady in the corner. I don’t want to be the one rolling her eyes, while sat looking out to sea, at the sight of the first Christmas tree in July.

This weird thought came to me as I was brushing my teeth last night. I have a strange habit. This strange habit is something I engage in while brushing my teeth. As I brushed, I wondered: do other people have quirky habits like this? My weird habit is this: when I am brushing my teeth I stand on one leg. I hold the non-standing leg against my belly. I don’t know why I like to brush my teeth one-legged. I just do. It’s odd. It feels odd to brush my teeth with both feet firmly on the ground. It just doesn’t feel right. So I don’t do it.

No, this isn’t me but at least I’m not the only one who does this

Two of my three sons have a strange habit. They hum while they eat. They make ‘hmmm, mmmm, mmmm’ noises as they chomp. I have no idea why they do this. They have both always done this. Interestingly, the middle one doesn’t do this. They even do this when they have friends round. They continue to do this even after the friend or friends have commented on this odd behaviour.

Another slightly eccentric thing I do is read when I’m on the toilet (as well as have strange thoughts). I don’t think I am the only person who does this. However, I will take a book with me if I am going out so that if I need the toilet while I am out I have something to read. If on the off chance I’m caught short without a book, I will resort to reading the back of the bleach bottle (and very interesting the average bleach bottle is). It is rare that I find myself in a toilet with absolutely nothing to read. If that does happen, things generally do not flow as easily as they otherwise might. I struggle without reading matter. This is one instance when I’m glad to be female. I can indulge in my weirdness in the confines of a cubicle.

This is my dream toilet

I have a friend (and if she reads this she will know who she is) who always used to (and might still do) eat her meal in a set order. If the meal consisted of a meat or fish portion, and two or more vegetable portions, she always left the meat or fish portion to the end. She claimed that that was the best bit so she liked to leave the best until the end. This same friend (sorry!) used to click her toe nails while watching TV. I have no idea whether she still does that nor not.

I also have a quirky habit when it comes to cups of tea and coffee. I can never finish a hot drink. I always have to leave a centimetre of coffee or tea in the bottom. I cannot drink the last bit. I never have been able to do this.

My favourite tipple – but not the bottom bit

My husband’s strange habit is an inability to spend small change. I’m not sure why but if something he is purchasing comes to £10.11p he will pay with either a ten pound note and a pound coin or perhaps a ten pound note and a fifty-pence coin. Even if he has a selection of two- and one-pence coins in his pocket, he won’t use them. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be a bother by standing there at the till holding up the queue while he counts out his coppers. Maybe he likes to collect coppers. Perhaps he is hiding a secret slot-machine habit. I don’t know why he does this. He is just able to accumulate coppers like nobody else I have met. I never have more than six pence in coppers at any time. We are very different in this way.

Slot machine heaven

I want to know what ‘strange habits’ other people have. I think we are all quirky behind our front doors.

If nothing else, I want to be proved that I am more normal than I think I am. This world needs to be populated with more weirdness.

This weird thought came to me as I watched my cat contentedly rubbing her nose against the edge of a cardboard box the other night. She seems to get such pleasure from this activity. She does it a lot. I began to wonder what it would be like if people derived pleasure from rubbing their cheeks and ears against cardboard. Would we sit in front of the TV of an evening with a piece of cardboard in our hand, contentedly rubbing our faces against it as we watched? Would we keep a piece by the bed for early morning rubbings? I might perhaps need one in the car for traffic jam boredom.

If we were cat-like we wouldn’t need expensive beds – boxes are just fine

If we were cat-like, would we find comfort in sitting in recycling bins because they are warm? If there was nothing on TV, might I find myself curled up in the paper recycling? It seems a good place to go to when life gets a bit much.

Move over, let me in

If we were cat-like would we find the need to kneed on the chest of anyone sitting down?

If we were cat-like would we find the warmth of laptop keyboards more appealing than the temptation to type?

Why are laptops so appealing to cats?

If we were cat-like would it take ages for us to walk to the shops? We’d need to stop at every tree to sharpen our finger nails.

If we were cat-like there would be no need for baths or showers. When we’re not rubbing our faces against cardboard while watching TV we could be washing our bits and pieces.

I’m not sure we’d get much done if we were cat-like. We’d spend most of our time sleeping and we’d sleep in fits and starts rather than in one solid period of time so work would be a big no-no for starters. But, then again, as I’ve written about recently, perhaps it is a good thing we are not more cat-like. We’d be busy plotting world domination.

This is a weird thought I had last night as I got undressed ready for bed. My underwear is boring: tights, pants, bra. That’s it. No lace, no buttons, no poppers, no bones, no frilly bits, no wafty parts, no Egyptian cotton and no pure silk.

If I had been born in 1850 it might have taken me a lot longer to get ready for bed but the underwear would have been far more complicated and exciting.

These do not come from M&S in a pack of three

So where has the underwear excitement gone? I blame the 1970s. Before then, underwear was at least a little bit exciting. Then women wanted to break free of the constraints of bras and corsets and threw it all away. This is all well and good and equal rights for women was what we needed but now we have equal rights (at least to the main) we are lumbered with boring two-pieces (that rarely match) which are at best slightly decorative, at worst, purely functional.

Victorian underwear even sounds exciting: bloomers, chamese, bodice, corset. Twenty-first century underwear sounds somewhere between functional and tacky: pants or knickers, bra, tights. It certainly isn’t sexy. I love the word bloomers. It makes me think of flowing air. The word corset has so much potential. It is a womanly word. A chamese shimmers and flows with sophistication. A bodice is there to be ripped. Knickers don’t do anything for me. It isn’t a pleasant word. Pants is a word that is almost as nauseating as slacks. Underwear should not be monosyllabic. And tights will never, ever have sex appeal. Bra feels like a lazy word. If it were a brassiere it would be better.

At least they are matching

All the underwear I am wearing right now came from Marks & Spencers. It isn’t matching. It isn’t new. It isn’t at all exciting. There is no lace, no thrills, no flowers. It is really boring. I want to wear some Victorian underwear, even just for one day. I think that would be nice. I’d like to be able to flap my bloomers and shimmy in my chamese.

At the very least, I need to make sure I have reasonable-quality underwear on for when the cats take over the world. Nobody wants to succumb to a cat dictatorship in tatty pants.

This is a weird thought I have a lot, especially when I’m sat quietly minding my own business and I get that unsettling feeling that I am being stared at. That feeling, always turns out not to be paranoia, and the cause is always my cat.

If anyone, I think it is the cats of this world who are plotting word domination

Cats are to the main quiet, gentle, sleepy creatures. They purr, they sit close to their owners, they keep themselves very clean. They appear to only care about sleep and food. I think this behaviour is very suspicious.

I believe that cats are secretly planning world domination. I think they are close to getting there. Catageddon is in the not-so-distant future. They have been planning world domination for centuries, since Roman times. I think the Egyptians knew this, and this is why they worshipped cats (keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer). In fact, if it weren’t for the Egyptians, cats would have taken over the world centuries ago.

Cats want us to venerate them

I’d better not spend too long writing this blog. My cat is approaching me. She knows I am on to her. She must be able to smell my suspicion. I think she can read my mind. She pretends to be dumb. She acts stupid. She pretends not to know that drinking milk out of my cereal bowl is naughty because that perpetuates the image of Stupid Cat. My husband thinks she is a Stupid Cat. My children think she is a Stupid Cat.

Have you ever wondered: where do cats go at night? I am certain that after we go to bed, they have meetings. They plot. They make plans. They have agendas and minutes. They have a chair, vice-chair and secretary. They have regional leaders. Those regional leaders have county-wide meetings, and country-wide ones, and country-to-country ones via Skype.

You may be reading this and thinking that I am deluded. I am not. Type in ‘Cats are plann…’ into google and see what google predicts you may be wishing to google. And once you type ‘cats are planning to kill you’ you will find that there are a lot of websites on cat conspiracy theories. This one is my favourite. Most troubling in the list given here for me is: ‘sleeping on your electronics’. My cat does that all the time. She loves my laptop. I thought it was for the warmth. How wrong I was.

I’m NOT paranoid

There is a YouTube video warning the world about seemingly sweet felines. Have we headed this warning yet? No.

Why do cats love boxes so much? So they can eavesdrop on our conversations, aka SPY, that is why. Who came up with the idea of cat hotels and cat cafes? It was not people. It was the cats brainwashing the people. I don’t know how they have been able to do this. But I am sure that they have psychic skills.

This is a good place for meetings

Louis Wain knew the secret about cats. This secret sent him mad. He painted the future leaders of the world.

Our future leader

The day will come when the cats of the world will unite. Watch out. They are waiting, patiently for the go-ahead. I’m surprised the Daily Mail hasn’t yet written about this threat. At least that is what I thought. In fact, believe it or not, they have! It must be true. I’m not paranoid. I wonder if Nigel Farage is aware of this impending catastrophe? Perhaps not yet. He will be once he reads this blog.

Since the tragedy in Paris I’ve been feeling three emotions: sadness, warmth and confusion. I’m saddened by what has happened and events proceeding it in the Islamic world. I’m uplifted by people’s immediate responses and shows of support for those caught up in the terror in Paris. I’m confused by the knee-jerk reactions of people on social media to how to deal with the events.

I think it is the cats of this world who are plotting word domination

I urge those reacting, angry people to find out: what is terrorism?

To save them googling, this is the Internet definition of terrorism: the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

Here are ten not-so-weird thoughts that have come to my mind this weekend:

Anyone can be a terrorist (the top ten of terrorists of all time include an Italian, a Belgian, Genghis Khan, a Ugandan, an Iraqian, Mao Tse Tung and a German – no guesses who that was).

Terrorism is not limited to any single race, religion and ethnicity, it is part of what makes us human (however much we don’t want it to be a part of us).

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Anger cannot be defeated with anger.

Hatred cannot be stamped out with hatred.

Not all Muslims are Islamic Terrorists, in fact hardly any of them are, just as not all Irish Catholics were IRA Terrorists.

Syrian Refugees are not terrorists. They are fleeing from terror.

Closing borders will make no difference to the ability of terrorists to strike. If someone wants to blow themselves up, they will find a way. Chances are they will be already living in the place they want to blow up and they may even have been born there.

Refugees need our help more than ever now. See seventh point above.

The best way to deal with terrorist attacks is to stay optimistic and help those that need help and be alert yet positive, not negative.

People the world over have used terrorism to try to further their aims and beliefs: Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Any human can become a terrorist. All terrorists start off as cute babies. It has been argued that it is innate in human nature (of course we don’t all terrorists and the vast majority won’t).

Can you guess who this baby grew up to be?

The opposite to extremism isn’t the other extremism. Please be nice, people. Don’t let emotions rule over common sense. Don’t stoop to their level. Rise above.

Recently, I have been mulling over that question all parents ask of themselves: am I doing it right? This not-so-weird thought came about after my youngest son had to make a castle for his half-term homework. He made this:

The best efforts of my clever boy

He didn’t spent a lot of time on it. It was created in two sittings, each lasting about half an hour. The only help I gave him was in finding the sellotape and the tin foil for the moat. He was very pleased when it was completed and he took it into school the next day.

The following day I happened to be in school and I saw the display of all the castles of his classmates. These were not castles, they were works of art. They were truly very impressive. There was colour, glitter, turrets, windows and all sorts of other embellishments. I was amazed and awed. Next to these works of art the above castle looked, frankly, a little floppy and a bit sad. I questioned myself: should I have helped him more? Should I have encouraged him to use paint, stickers, better-quality cardboard? Should I have done the cutting out for him? He’s only six after all.

This isn’t one of the other castles but resembles very closely one of them

I asked Facebook. The consensus seemed to be that, no, it is best to let the six year old make his own castle. It wasn’t my homework, it was his. So for a day or so I basked in the glory of knowing that there are more arguments in favour of hands-off parenting (or in my case, lazy parenting) than there are in hands-on (helicopter) parenting.

However, on the next day I looked in his bookbag. To my horror I found at least a months’ worth of spelling practice sheets that he hadn’t filled out. I hadn’t noticed them before (I don’t delve into his bookbag very often except to take out his reading book). I asked him how he’d done on his last spelling test. ‘Two out of six,’ he told me with a sad face. That familiar wave of parental guilt gushed through me. How did I react? Badly. I got cross. I reprimanded for not having practiced his spellings and for not telling me he had these spelling sheets. I made him sit and retrospectively practice four weeks’ worth of spellings. He did this quite happily. However, was that the right thing to do? Probably not. Here is a case where hands-off (or in my case lazy) parenting does not pay off well and the more hands-on and attentive parent will smile smugly at me. He’s too young to be responsible for doing his homework without being told regularly that he should be doing it. I should have spotted these spelling sheets and sat with him while he practiced every week. I hadn’t done this. Parenting fail.

So, my weird thought now is, how do I find the right balance between being a helicopter parent and being a racing car parent, racing around in my own circles not noticing when he goes of on a tangent from his own little circle?

Hovering above, until they have their own babies no doubt

I’m not sure. I think the only way to go is by trail and error and just hope for the best. Sometimes circling ahead is the best way, other times, circling elsewhere is better. Is there a happy medium? There is such a thing as being a submarine parent – not too close, but not too far away. Aware, but not obviously so.

This is where I need to be

Since we’re on the topic of helicopter parenting. My favourite example of this extreme came a couple of weeks ago on my first day at the University of Wolverhampton. A tutor was ushering some first year undergraduate students in to the building and just as he was about to close the main door, he turned to a clingy middle-aged couple and said: ‘You can go now, she’ll be fine, she can cope by herself here’.

Helicopter parents are not Bad People. They mean well. They just want the best for their children. They want them to succeed where they might not have. Or they might want to give them opportunities that they did not have. If I had more time I probably would be standing next to my three boys cheering them all on in the race of life. However, I would be surprised if I end up as that parent at the door of the university in 12 years time clinging to my youngest for dear life, fearing his failure in higher education. He can get the train and find his own way there. Good luck, Toby!

Yesterday, my husband expressed mild amusement as I logged out of Twitter. He expressed further amusement as I subsequently logged out of all the other applications open on my computer late in the evening (AceProject, CodeMantra, Mantis and WordPress in case you were interested). I questioned his amusement of course, as anyone would. He responded with something along the lines of: ‘Nobody else logs out of Twitter’. I was quite surprised by this. ‘You are the only person I know who logs out of WordPress’ he added.

The lovely AceProject

I paused for thought. I always log out of Twitter. And I always log out of WordPress. Somehow, to me, it feels rude not to. It is akin to putting the phone down without saying ‘goodbye’, or closing the door in someone’s face, or going to sleep without saying good night.

My weird thought is: am I alone in this strange behaviour? Twitter doesn’t care if I don’t log out. Twitter does not have feelings. It doesn’t get the hump. It doesn’t sulk. It doesn’t make a mental note of the times I have accidentally shut it down without logging out plotting some sort of twisted, online revenge for later (I’m not sure what this twisted, online revenge would consist of – taking away one of my many – 60 – followers?). It doesn’t even crash or stop working. Nothing happens. There are no consequences of not logging out.

Is this misplaced sense of good behaviour a result of my age? I was born before the ‘computer age’ in the 1970s. Do people who have grown up in this digital age feel the same need for a sense of closure from closing down or logging out? I will have to ask them.

Just before half term, at the most inconvenient time possible, our main family car died. We were due to go away to Wales for a week and needed the car to get ourselves and all our stuff there. It went for it’s annual MOT four days before we were due to leave, and it didn’t come back. It was gently put to sleep by the nice people at the garage. I didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye. If I had had the chance, I would have taken lots of photos of the interior and exterior. All I have, is two car magazine-esque photos taken by my unsentimental husband. I do, of course, have the memories.

It had had a good, long life. It was 12 years’ old. It had served us very well. It was just slightly older than my oldest son but it came to live with us when he was about 18 months’ old. We have grown up as a family together. It saw two more babies being born. It drove two more babies home from the hospital. It has been vomited on, pooed in and bashed and battered by 10 years of family life. It has lived in Charlbury and Shrewsbury. It has driven from Charlbury to Banbury hundreds of times. It has made its way to Borth a fair few times. It knew how to drive to Sainsbury’s with its eyes closed. I cried when it didn’t come home. I grieved. I’m not being melodramatic. I felt that pang of pain when bereft of the chance to say goodbye to a loved one.

This boy was 18 months old when he first rode in The Tank

At first, after we purchased it, I didn’t like the car. It was big. I named it ‘The Tank’. I actually avoided driving it. It was too big for me. I was scared of it. Then I scratched it. Then I scratched it again. And again. It was just too damn big. I still feared it. However, after about six years of ownership and perhaps sixteen more scratches, I reached a point when it was so scratched that my fear of it subsided and I didn’t feel anxious at the thought of driving it any more. Then I drove it all the time. I warmed to it. I came to love it. I still called it ‘The Tank’ but I eventually came to love it in a weird love-hate way. It became ‘mummy’s’ car rather than ‘daddy’s’ car. Last year we bought a new, second, smaller car yet I still preferred to drive The Tank. It took me four months to pluck up the courage to drive that (and only then because ‘The Tank’ died and I needed a car to get to Wales).

The first car magazine picture of The Tank

The point of this weird thought is: why did I grieve for a piece of metal? Why did I feel a similar pain for the car as I had felt for our old cat, Liquorice, when she was taken from us quite suddenly.

Dear old Liquorice

The difference with these two scenarios is that I got the chance to say goodbye to Liquorice. I also have lots and lots of photos of her. And she was a living thing with a personality. Whereas, a car?

What Car? would love this picture.

My argument here is that the car did in fact have a personality. How can that be so when it is made of metal? It wasn’t (it even hurts to write about it in the past tense) living. But to me it almost was. It was definitely male. It was stubborn. It was big and clumsy. Yet it was very caring. It looked after me and my babies. It protected us and took us to where we needed to go whenever we needed it. Even though I didn’t want to feel affection for it, it persisted and waited until I was ready to love it back. It didn’t give up on me. So for that persistence, I grieve. I feel guilty that I didn’t love it for such a long time. I ignored it. It deserved better. I wish I could go back and say sorry.

I am feeling better now than I did two weeks’ ago when the car didn’t return. However, this experience just adds to my belief that we can love things as much as we love living beings. Of course I didn’t love the car as much as I did Liquorice but the feeling of loss, albeit less intense, is the same.